2/05/2008

Typical email that I am getting on the Republican Presidential Candidates and Gun Control

John,First of all thank your hard work defending the 2nd Amendment. I have to vote today and am quite torn as usual. I am not a one issue voter. I have always admired John McCain's sacrifice for our country, but seeing him chumming up with Arnold really bothers me. I have a lot of friends in CA that are furious about The Governor signing yet more anti gun legislation, as as they say so goes CA, so goes the Nation. So I may end up voting for a man I don't respect as much...

Any thoughts?

My response:

Well, with Romney you will likely get an new assault weapons ban. With McCain, you will get a gun show regulation bill that will regulate all private transfers of guns. I would also guess that you could get a bill requiring that people use gun locks. I am not sure what Romney really believes because he has changed his positions on too many issues. Of these different laws, I think that the gun locks rule is the worst because if prevents people from using guns defensively.

Personally, I worry that both Romney and McCain will be weak general election candidates though for different reasons. Romney because he has changed his position on too many issues. McCain will be attacked as too old and will have a tough time getting the conservative base to turn out.

My bottom line is the courts. I think that Romney is probably more likely to appoint conservatives to the courts than McCain. I think that McCain will have a very hard time appointing conservatives to the court if he really wants his campaign finance regulations put in place. I believe that there is a strong correlation between their views on protecting the First Amendment on political speech and the Second Amendment.

3 Comments:

reg cæsar said...

John McCain voted for S. 2611, as did Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for more obvious reasons.

Whether a candidate supports an "assault weapon" ban or closing a "gunshow loophole" is a pretty trivial matter compared to increasing the size of the population 20% at once, nearly all of that increase alien to, and unsympathetic to, our gun rights.

Vote for Ron Paul. This is our dream candidate. Please support him. Don't vote for who you think might win, vote for the guy you actually want to win. I believe we want a candidate who has the highest respect for the Constitution including the Bill of Rights.

McClintock would have beat Schwarzenegger in California if people thought he had a chance of winning. I believe the exit polls support this.

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About Me

Name: John Lott

Location: Virginia, United States

Amazed how lucky I am that I have had jobs where I could just think about whatever I wanted to think about.
This summer I will be moving to the University of Maryland. Previously I held positions at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Stanford, UCLA, Wharton, and Rice and was the chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission during 1988 and 1989. I have published over 90 articles in academic journals. I received my Ph.D. in economics from UCLA in 1984.